Devoted to the unexpected details that help to make life in the city worth living

Tuesday, 7 September 2010

Royal Academy of Dramatic Art, Gower Street WC1

RADA was built in 1927 by Geoffrey Norman, with these actors holding masks of Tragedy and Comedy sculpted by Alan Durst over the main entrance. Durst was a career soldier who left the army for art and enrolled at the Central School of Art and Design in 1913, with tragically bad timing. The very next year he was, of course, back in the Marines for the duration.
Durst makes a simple and effective point about acting by giving the Mask of Comedy to the grumpy old bloke on the right, and the Mask of Tragedy to the sunny, smiling beauty on the left.